The Right Decision To Take Native American Land In The Late 1800s

I personally think that the westward expansion pros weighed out the cons in the end mainly as living space and new farm land to increase the population seem important. Supporters

There is a moral injustice for invading a land that belonged to the natives and the environment, and the reality of the West was not a victory, but it was a conflict, unintended consequences, and

However, two areas stood in the way of the United States expanding west. This included the Oregon territory, occupied by the US, and Great Britain, and the Western and southwestern lands which was owned by Mexico. James K. Polk, one of the presidential candidates, was someone

Americans believed they should be granted the land in any means necessary. President Andrew Jackson was a big believer in manifest destiny and as soon as he was in office he got to work on western expansion. Jackson told

After the Civil War in the 1860s, there were Indian policies put in place to exterminate Native Americans and remove them from their homelands. The idea to “kill the Indian, save the man” was a common ideal that was believed during this time. The racial discrepancies established between white versus Indian, led to the killing of indigenous Americans, and relocation to reservations. These reservations were the significantly smaller pieces of land Native Americans were allowed to have. The reservations are a result of forceful migration which only occurred because of the choehold Manifest Destiny had on white Americans.

”(3) U.S. troops were herding the American Indians toward an Army camp. Keeping them captive again and restricting them, they started searching the American Indians and collecting all of their knives. The U.S. troops searched tents, and people themselves. They violated their own constitution.

Americans were focused on western expansion in the name of manifest destiny, they thought that god wanted them to have the land.

Furthermore, the New World was rapidly overpopulating, forcing the Europeans to migrate west of the region. In the book, Amy Greenberg states that the ideology of western expansion began when Puritans, upon arriving in the New World, “They envisioned their experimental settlement as a ‘citty upon a hill,’ a beacon of light for less blessed people elsewhere that would prove superiority not only of Protestantism over Catholicism but also of strict Puritans over less rigorous practices of Protestanism. ”1 In the 18th century, many settlers believed in a God established community. In addition, settlers believed that the New World was the place to establish a Christian nation and expand throughout the vast region.

From colonial times until the end of the Indian Wars in 1890, the people in America went through a series of unfair and unfortunate events. Mainly for the Indians which are also called the first peoples. These events could have been handled with much more consideration for the Indians. There are many times when the Americans went too far including the Removal Act of 1830, the Reservation System, and the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians.

Human nature for the first Americans was based on their desire for a better life than what they had in Europe. While they may have initially been looking for freedom- be it religious, political or financial- as time passed, it became more about control. Their desire for freedom put them in conflict with first the Native Americans, then the slaves, then the countries that controlled the lands surrounding their original thirteen colonies. For the Americans to maintain their freedoms, they had to suppress those of others. At the root of these conflicts was land.

The natives were very cold and they were hungry; thousands of people died along the way. The constitution which was written in 1787, it states in the 5th amendment that is also part of the Bill of Rights, “ nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”. No one can use or take someone 's property without the permission. The United States went against their own rights, they took away property from the natives, because they needed to expand, without even conversing with them.

Native Americans flourished in North America, but over time white settlers came and started invading their territory. Native Americans were constantly being thrown and pushed off their land. Sorrowfully this continued as the Americans looked for new opportunities and land in the West. When the whites came to the west, it changed the Native American’s lives forever. The Native Americans had to adapt to the whites, which was difficult for them.

When the Europeans began colonizing the New World, they had a problematic relationship with the Native Americans. The Europeans sought to control a land that the Natives inhabited all their lives. They came and decided to take whatever they wanted regardless of how it affected the Native Americans. They legislated several laws, such as the Indian Removal Act, to establish their authority. The Indian Removal Act had a negative impact on the Native Americans because they were driven away from their ancestral homes, forced to adopt a different lifestyle, and their journey westwards caused the deaths of many Native Americans.

First of all, Native Americans were settled on a hotbed of natural resources which included oil and precious metals such as silver and gold. There was also much fertile land that would entice farmers and frontiersmen to move out west. On this land there was so much potential economic opportunity for farmers, cattle drivers, miners and many other occupations. The government developed the popular public misconception that the indians were misusing the land and that Americans had the right to take advantage of the opportunities that lie in the west. These ideas led to the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 which authorized encroachment of Indian lands by the US government in order to divide up reservations and control Indian activity.

Throughout the 19th century Native Americans were treated far less than respectful by the United States’ government. This was the time when the United States wanted to expand and grow rapidly as a land, and to achieve this goal, the Native Americans were “pushed” westward. It was a memorable and tricky time in the Natives’ history, and the US government made many treatments with the Native Americans, making big changes on the Indian nation. Native Americans wanted to live peacefully with the white men, but the result of treatments and agreements was not quite peaceful. This precedent of mistreatment of minorities began with Andrew Jackson’s indian removal policies to the tribes of Oklahoma (specifically the Cherokee indians) in 1829 because of the lack of respect given to the indians during the removal laws.